


your mouth like the best wine

by noun



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Fighting As Foreplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:08:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25701115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noun/pseuds/noun
Summary: Her arms were thickly muscled. He had noticed it first in Kyrenia. It made sense. She fought with a longsword in heavy Crusader armor, and doing so took a level of strength and dedication Altair appreciated, especially when combined with the novelty of seeing it in a woman.She kept the longsword she had borne in de Sable’s service, the pommel wrapped with leather to hide the jeweled cross. She did not bring it in the ring, where she used a dulled blade to his practice one. It was helpful to fight her, after other Assassins who trained like him. She fought like a Crusader, and while she learned the tactics of an Assassin, she maintained a flexibility of style that Altair also appreciated.Even now, she still managed to surprise him.
Relationships: Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad/Maria Thorpe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25
Collections: Rare Pairs Exchange 2020





	your mouth like the best wine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [perkyplum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/perkyplum/gifts).



Her arms were thickly muscled. He had noticed it first in Kyrenia. It made sense. She fought with a longsword in heavy Crusader armor, and doing so took a level of strength and dedication Altair appreciated, especially when combined with the novelty of seeing it in a woman.

She kept the longsword she had borne in de Sable’s service, the pommel wrapped with leather to hide the jeweled cross. She did not bring it in the ring, where she used a dulled blade to his practice one. It was helpful to fight her, after other Assassins who trained like him. She fought like a Crusader, and while she learned the tactics of an Assassin, she maintained a flexibility of style that Altair also appreciated. 

Even now, she still managed to surprise him. He struck, and she parried, though it left her left side exposed briefly. Taking advantage of his lighter weapon, he spun to strike again, and his blade met her crossguard which she used to force his sword down into the dirt. While he was caught between dropping it or making use of his strength to counter, she struck out and kicked his knee hard enough that he fell back onto his ass.

It was not enough to put him out in a real fight, but for the ring...

He grinned at her as she held out her hand to haul him to his feet. Then she bent for the sword, and asked, in her ever-improving Arabic, “Who is next?” 

Yes, Maria Thorpe was a sensible woman.

“It is good you married her in Cyprus,” Malik remarked, once he was out of the ring. Maria was impatiently gesturing the next man in, a newly-made journeyman who had a very reasonable air of fear about him.

Altair had dropped the grin as soon as he was back on his feet, the sternness and the weight of the Mentor on him once more. He did not have one for Malik, who had mastered wit and placidity, the refuge of all in untouchable authority or near it. The two of them were too young and invested with too much power to permit themselves too much freedom of expression, too many easy smiles.

“Why is that?”

Malik bared his teeth in something approximating a smile. The expression dropped suddenly at a cry from behind them and both of their heads snapped round to look back at the ring. The journeyman was in the dust, his sword several feet away.

Malik murmured something, too low for Altair’s hearing. This one, Maria did not help up. When he did eventually get to his feet, she set about adjusting his stance, unafraid of putting her hands on him to move him when he did not obey or understand fast enough. 

“She is formidable,” Malik said. 

Altair grunted in agreement and turned back to the path up to the castle, intending to return to his rooms. There, he lingered still on the image of her in the ring as he removed the leather belt, the harness. Caring for his weapons was ingrained. The oil; the wheystone, the movements by rote and without need for too much focus. He thought of how Maria had moved, the arc of her sword, and how he might counter in the next fight.

It was exhilarating. The promise of challenge was as alluring as ever. Yet shed with his arrogance and self-importance were previous notions that might have suggested that if he bested her, he would be her better.

Maria would never submit or think of him as untouchable. In that was her allure. 

Smiling to himself, he put the sword away. He never went unarmed, even now with a knife holstered to his thigh, but there was a difference born in feeling secure of putting the Hidden Blade aside, of wearing no sword at your side. The hood and sash he put aside also, head uncovered, in only the whites. There were some affectations to the uniform, to make it clear he was the Mentor, but this was only to remind the men, not to weigh himself down with majesty as al-Mualim did.

No, he thought. None of that. His reputation kept men at arm’s length, but there was no need for more.

There were scrolls to review. A servant had left a small meal on the desk for him, covered in cloth to keep off the flies. A jug of wine waited, and two cups. The servants had adjusted to Maria with ease.

Struck by inspiration, he moved to the dark storage room. There was no light, no windows, but even without the barrel glowing golden in his vision he would have found it. He took the knife from under his tunic and pried the lid off. The straw was packed tight, but clean-smelling. He did not have to dig much to find a glass vessel and pull it free from its protection.

He brought it into the light once he had closed the barrel back. The Cypriot wine inside was dark, and he replaced the wine that had been on the tray with this much improved version.

Now, he only had to fill the time until she joined him. He would normally fill these hours before dusk with reports from the training masters, or settling whatever inane matters needed to be brought to the attention of the Mentor, or (and this was a caressing whisper in the back of his mind) securing the door and seeing what the Apple had to teach him, but the space, set for Maria, had a sort of anticipation left heavy in the air. It would be spoiled by anyone else’s presence.

That left him alone with his thoughts. 

As they often did, they strayed to the thought of the Brotherhood. The task that lay before him was not the work of one lifetime, or a dozen, but it began with him. Under the cloth sat figs, easiest of the meal to grab and eat while he leaned against his desk, ran plans through his mind and found most of them wanting. 

He would not have been worthy of his post if he did not switch easily from that to attention when the door opened and Maria came in. 

“Supper?” she said, noticing the plate, and then, pleased when he pulled back the cloth to reveal flatbread and soft cheese and fruit, said, “Good.”

She availed herself of the jug and basin, washing off her hands and splashing water on her face, sluicing the worst of the grit from her face. She had not gone down in the dirt like so many of her opponents, and was cleaner for it. Maria shook her hands clean, then tore off some of the flatbread on the plate, eating it in the mechanical manner of a soldier. She glanced around his office, at his desk, and when she saw that it was cleared, she asked, “Were you working?”

“Thinking,” Altair admitted. He poured the wine into the two cups, and handed her one. Her surprise was worth the effort.

“Cypriot,” she breathed. 

“Yes,” he said. “What are your thoughts on the journeymen you sparred with today?”

Maria ran through a succinct report, and Altair nodded along. When she finished, she said, “You should have stayed.”

“Why? It does not sound as if they were sloppy in my absence.” Or in Maria’s presence. 

“They weren’t. But one of them managed to disarm another using a move he said the bureau leader of Damascus showed him, and I want to try it.”

Altair set aside his glass, and moved the bottle of wine and the plate both to his desk. “Help me move the rug,” he said, gesturing to the other corner.

“You want to try it here?” Maria asked.

“I am not going to the ring,” he said, and so she did as he requested, probably also thinking about making a spectacle of themselves before the whole Brotherhood at this hour. 

The rug moved and the pottery and food out of reach, they both stood in the center of the room.

“Make as if you intend to stab me,” Maria said, and Altair did, aiming a fist for her ribcage. Maria spun to the side, as he expected, but she did something with her arm and how she grabbed him that he lost his footing and did not bother to fight falling, slapping the ground with his hands to give himself the momentum to rise again. Maria waited for him, easy and patient.

“Again,” he demanded, and again lunged forward. This time he was able to map the motion more completely, noting her footwork. Again, he fell, rebounded, and he did not even need to speak before he tried again, Maria once again throwing him to the floor. This time, as he fell, he swept out his leg in a kick, trying to catch her ankle and bring her down with him. He failed; she lept back, and by the time he rose to his feet again he was well aware that she allowed it.

“I think you have it,” Maria said, dry, her arms crossed. “Do you want to try?”

He nodded, and she moved forward. The footwork came easy, as did grabbing her arm to deflect the imagined blow. But she did not go down quietly. When her knee smashed into his thigh, he winced, jarred forward just enough that when she fell, he came down too, her elbow in his ribs. 

He was limited in his options. This was not a real fight, and he lost precious seconds in modifying his movements to reflect that. He tried to roll, using his hands to push off her, but Maria slammed his shoulder down before he could work up the momentum, and then she was on top of him, hunched over him, his hands pinned.

“I claim a forfeit,” she said, her eyes alight. 

Altair did not much have a choice. He could bash his skull into her nose and claim victory that way, or try to. Maria would not appreciate it, and also she was sitting atop his lap now too, keeping him down with her weight.

“Granted,” he said, and the curl of her smile matched the malice in her eyes.

“Take off your tunic,” she said. “And your trousers.”

He saw no reason to disobey. Both came off easily, and it took longer to decide where to place them than it had to remove them. He settled for the desk, and then stood nude before her. Altair knew kinship then with the nude Greek and Roman statues for how she stared, walking around him.

He anticipated the blow when she threw it, a strike aimed for the back of his knee. He twisted, grabbed her instead, yanking her forward and using the momentum to force her to the floor. Maria went down easily, her arm pinned against her back, her cheek pressed to the carpet, so much so that he briefly resented her for letting him win. But when she turned her head, he remembered what sort of game they were playing, gone beyond practice. The arousal sparked easily, turned the heat in his blood to passion.

“A forfeit,” he breathed. 

“And what would you have?”

“The same as what you asked of me,” he replied. 

He had to release her arm to allow it, and Maria showed none of the care he did, tossing her clothes off towards the wash basin. She knelt on the carpet next to him, and inched forward to kiss him, demanding and combative. They fumbled, he nearly bit her tongue, and then Maria pulled away to shove at his shoulders playfully.

“Lay back,” she said, and he obeyed, basking in her attention as she straddled his hips, wasting no time.

The dark thatch of hair between her thighs stole the whole of his attention, and he jerked his attention away from it to recieve her kiss again as she took him in hand and then took him inside her. She was slick and hot, and Altair wondered if she had decided she would have him while they were still play-fighting, or even if it had begun in the ring. He knew he sometimes felt the same, a strange new excitement when sparring with her, hidden by the layers of robes. 

There was a common enough mood between fucking and fighting. His heart beat just as hard and he felt the same sort of wild awareness of every part of his skin and every movement of her body. Her breasts bounced as she rolled her hips. He put his mouth to one, her nipple caught between lips, suckling, tongue flicking the hard bud. Altair wanted to press her closer, bring her down to more equitable angle, where he might thrust up into her rather than being at the mercy of the pace she set.

He reached for her, to hold her hips and moderate her pace, but she stared down at him and he released her breast, laying back and keeping his hands where they were, open and limp. Maria rode him hard, and he could not find any particular objection to it, as slick and warm as it was inside her, and as triumphant as she looked as she took her pleasure. So delighted was she that she did not even need to make use of her own hand or his to finish. He felt her tighten around him, more than just her purposeful tricks, and took pride in bringing her this far as she moaned and dug her nails into his shoulders. She was welcome to claw as deeply as she liked, he took no shame in her spilling his blood, folding a knee for leverage when she faltered above him, her face cast to the ceiling and her breath a stutter. 

When she and her shoulders slumped, he focused on his own pleasure. This time, when he reached for her hips, she did not fight him, and it was an easy finish, looking at her pink splotchy face and taking pride in the dishevelment of her normally meticulous braid. Shuddering, biting his lip to keep from making a sound, he came, his eyes shut tight. 

It was as blissful as victory, though with a more sudden fall. They could not remain so joined forever, and Maria let him catch his breath before she lifted off him. She was not so perfect as to rise to her feet immediately, and he saw no reason to attempt to outdo her. They could both recline on the carpet for a moment.

Altair laid there and could not stop from grinning. Maria, her braid half undone and threatening to slide off her head, stared at him for a moment before pushing herself up on one elbow, all the better to grin down at him. Sweat trickled down her forehead, carrying with it still some of the dust from the training yard. 

He could imagine no sight more beautiful.

It was a few heaving breaths still before she was able to speak.

“Bath?” she said, and Altair, imagining the chance to watch as water poured down over her shoulders and down her hard thighs, found it no hardship to nod his agreement, already feeling reinvigorated. 

**Author's Note:**

> Meanwhile, Malik _keenly_ aware they're going back to the castle to fuck and debating blocking/allowing whoever claims they need to speak to the Mentor!! urgently!! for the next hour or so.


End file.
